TRANSFORMATION OF IVS and DVs with reflection - multiple linear regression

Posted by researcher on Nov 14, 2016; 1:46pm
URL: http://spssx-discussion.165.s1.nabble.com/TRANSFORMATION-OF-IVS-and-DVs-with-reflection-multiple-linear-regression-tp5733454.html

I had a dataset with 7 IVs and the DV : wanted to use linear multiple linear regression. The DV was very far from normal (according to usual tests). Very strong negative skew so I used reflection and SQRT transformation and (to pleasant surprise) the Dv then passed normality tests (p>.05). This was good but I noticed that the direction of the relationship between one of the IVs and the DV had changed - e.g. what had been a strongly positive beta (0.9) had become approx -.0.9.

So I am wondering is it 'usual' to also transform the IVs when using this sort of transformation on the DV?

Some other assumptions of MLR were met - no issues with multicollinearity, heteroscascidicty

BTW I realise logistic regression would have been an option but there is a small N (45) and larger samples are generally recommended with logistic. Initial experiments with this gave a very large exp (B) for one IV but yet was still not sig...

I am not a statistician -  I am a mixed methods researcher with some experience in quantitative research so highly technical answers may well blow over my head...

Any help appreciated though

Thanks